Pacific Progressive

Benefits On Health Marketplace Plans Will Be Similar But Costs Will Vary

By Michelle Andrews

This material was published by Kaiser Health News.

As the state health insurance marketplaces, also called exchanges, get set to launch in October, many people have questions about the coverage that will be offered there. Here are a few that were posed to me recently.

Q. Are there unintended consequences of shopping through an exchange? For example, are the benefits of a plan with a lower monthly premium less comprehensive than the benefits of an expensive plan? And are there plans available only to people who qualify for subsidies, so that once income increases, the consumer must switch to a different plan?

A. All plans sold on the exchanges must cover 10 so-called essential health benefits, including prescription drugs, emergency and hospital care, and maternity and newborn care.

For the most part, the plans will differ not in which benefits they cover but in the proportion of costs that consumers will be responsible for paying.

More From This Series Insuring Your Health

To Dodge Law, High-Cost Lender Offers Cash for Free

by Paul Kiel ProPublica

Alarmed by the explosion of high-cost lending in the state, cities across Texas have passed ordinances to prevent the cycle of debt that short-term, high-cost loans can create.

But some big lenders are finding clever ways around the laws 2013 like giving away cash for free.

TitleMax promises to "make getting cash easy!" To get a loan, borrowers with "good credit, bad credit, or no credit" need only turn over the title to their car.

In Dallas, San Antonio, and Austin 2013 which have all passed lending laws 2013 those loans have come with zero percent interest.

What's the catch? After 30 days, the loan is due in full. If the borrower cannot pay 2013TitleMax's average loan is for $1,300 2013 the borrower is sent to another TitleMax location outside of the city, where he or she can receive a new, unrestricted loan. That loan, states a contract given to one borrower, could have an annual rate as high as 310 percent.

Faith in Values: What We’ve Learned Since 9/11

This material was published by the Center for American Progress.

By Sally Steenland 

When people are forced to choose between protecting their safety and guarding their civil rights, almost everyone picks safety. After all, what good are rights if you’re injured or dead?

In the days after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, many policymakers used this forced choice to argue for new surveillance laws such as the Patriot Act. The law gave the government sweeping new powers to spy on Americans by wiretapping, seizing financial records, tracking Internet activity, and more; but these measures, we were told, were a necessary trade-off for security.

The FBI also paid informants to infiltrate mosques and set up sting operations that were supposed to catch terrorists in our midst. Yes, the informants were sometimes the ones to suggest violent jihad in conversations with mosque goers.  In one case, members of a California mosque were so alarmed that they reported an informant to the FBI. But we were told that the “war on terror” demanded aggressive tactics.

Racial and religious profiling, particularly at airports, followed a similar pattern. Folks who looked “Muslim”—whatever that means—were more likely be to stopped, questioned, and detained based on nothing more than their name, clothing, or skin color. But hey, that was the price for keeping our country safe.

Why We Must Reset the Fiscal Debate: 15 Charts

This material was published by the Center for American Progress.

By Michael Linden and Harry Stein

Some members of Congress are threatening a government shutdown on October 1 unless a new round of spending cuts is enacted—cuts that ignore the nation’s true, improved fiscal and economic outlook. Federal budget deficits have actually shrunk dramatically in recent years. The national debt is no longer on the brink of exploding. But our economy continues to struggle; the Census Bureau recently reported that income inequality is growing while middle-class wages are stagnant. The 15 charts in this column illustrate how much the fiscal picture has changed, and why—in order to get the economy back on track—the debate must change with it.

Note: Click on any of these charts to download them as .pdf files.

 In 2010, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, or CBO, projected exploding annual budget deficits and cumulative national debt. Policymakers on both sides agreed that stabilizing the federal budget had to be a high priority, so Congress enacted legislation that will reduce deficits by about $2.5 trillion over the next 10 years—not including the automatic spending cuts known as the “sequester.” Congress cut spending by $1.5 trillion and raised about $630 billion in new revenues. Taken together, these actions will reduce government spending by an additional $400 billion by reducing interest costs for the national debt. Due in part to these policy changes, annual budget deficits and cumulative national debt are both stable over the medium term.

Fukushima Fallout Not Affecting U.S.-Caught Fish

This material was published by the Center for American Progress.

By Michael Conathan 

In recent weeks, there has been a significant uptick in news from Fukushima, Japan. Officials from the Japanese government and the Tokyo Electric Power Company, or TEPCO, admitted that radioactive water is still leaking from the nuclear plant crippled by the 2011 earthquake and tsunami.

The new revelations about the amount of water leaking from the plant have caused a stir in the international community and led to additional scrutiny of Pacific Ocean seafood. Last week, South Korea announced it had banned all imports of Japanese seafood from a large area around Fukushima. And Al Jazeera reported that the cost to the region’s fishing industry over the past two years exceeds $3.5 billion.

Now, fears are mounting that the radiation could lead to dangerous contamination levels in seafood from more of the Pacific Basin. Numerous blog posts and articles expressed concern about the potential for higher concentrations of radioactive particles, particularly in highly migratory species such as tuna that may have encountered Fukushima’s isotopes—including highly dangerous and toxic materials such as cesium-137, strontium-90, and iodine-131—on their transoceanic travels.

Flood of New Data Should Be a Wakeup Call to Policymakers

This material was published by the Center for American Progress.

By Kitty Richards and Michael Linden

Over the next six weeks, Washington, D.C.—and especially the U.S. Congress—is going to be completely obsessed with the federal budget. But over the past week, there have been a handful of important releases of new economic data that show just how off-track that discussion really is. The new data underline the struggles of the middle class and the continuing drag of poverty and inequality. They also reveal that government debt, while once on a legitimately concerning trajectory, is now on a much more manageable path. Taken together, the numbers should make policymakers turn away from yet another damaging and acrimonious debate over deficits and toward a conversation on the pressing problems facing the country right now.

The Census Bureau released its annual report on income, poverty, and health insurance coverage yesterday, and the findings are alarming. Fully 15 percent of Americans, or 46.5 million people, currently live in poverty—an elevated level that has remained essentially unchanged since 2010 even though our economy is supposed to be in recovery. A broader measure of hardship that more accurately captures the difficulty American workers are facing—the share of Americans with incomes below twice the poverty line—now stands at 34.2 percent. This number has not fallen in two years and represents a 12.1 percent increase over prerecession levels.

4 Ways that Austerity Demands Have Reached New Extremes

This material was published by the Center for American Progress.

By Harry Stein 

Endnotes and citations are available in the PDF version of this issue brief.  Download the report: PDF  Read it in your browser:  Scribd

Although Republicans have called for deep spending cuts since taking over the House of Representatives in the 2010 midterm elections, their austerity demands became even more extreme this year. The spending levels in this year’s House Republican budget are dramatically lower than the House Republican budgets from the past two years. In fact, last year, the House overwhelmingly rejected a proposal for severe austerity nearly identical to the budget it now embraces. This year’s spending cuts are so severe that the House Republican caucus has been unable to pass actual spending bills to implement its own budget plan, since those bills would have to make deep and specific cuts that are beyond the pale of what even most conservatives would support.

Patient Advocates Seek A Gentle Transition From High Risk Pools To New Exchange Plans

By Michelle Andrews

This material was published by Kaiser Health News.

State high-risk insurance pools around the country provide coverage to approximately 220,000 people who have medical problems and are often turned down for traditional policies.

When the federal health law takes effect in January, insurers can no longer deny coverage to people who have medical problems and some of the state high-risk programs will disappear. But experts worry that enrollees, for whom reliable health care is critical, may not get much help finding a new plan or adequate notice about the changes coming.

The pools are operating in 35 states, and some have been in existence for decades. Premiums are often high, sometimes twice the price of a typical individual plan, as are out-of-pocket costs. Deductibles of $10,000 aren’t unusual.

More than a dozen of those pools plan to close or are considering doing so in the first six months of 2014, according to the National Association of State Comprehensive Insurance Plans, a membership organization for state high-risk pools. The remaining pools will continue or officials haven’t yet announced plans, according to NASCHIP. 

Consumers need to examine their options carefully, and it’s unclear how much help they’ll get from the pools that are closing, says Katie Keith, an assistant research professor at Georgetown University’s Center on Health Insurance Reforms.

"Many states require plans to give notice, help them find new coverage," she says. "But a lot of states are not helping consumers much."

More From This SeriesInsuring Your Health

Cash for Homes: Policy Implications of an Investor-Led Housing Recovery

This material was published by the Center for American Progress.

By Sarah Edelman  Download the report: PDF   Read it in your browser:  Scribd

Across the country, investors are taking advantage of the nation’s foreclosure crisis to purchase homes at bargain prices, often beating out potential homeowners who remain sidelined. In July, cash-on-hand investors bought about 55 percent of the homes sold in Las Vegas and numerous properties in other major metropolitan areas such as Miami, Phoenix, and Prince George’s County, Maryland, a suburb of Washington, D.C.

Investors can play a key role in a housing recovery. By absorbing excess inventory, they establish a floor for home prices and jumpstart appreciation. Responsible investors can also offer quality, affordable rental opportunities to families who may be locked out of homeownership due to foreclosure or lost wealth from the recession.

But while they can support communities, irresponsible investors can also destroy them by allowing properties to sit empty, declining to bring rental properties up to code, and neglecting tenants’ needs in instances where the home is occupied. Additionally, investors that buy large quantities of properties in a single area can cause prices to overheat and increase market volatility. Conversely, if institutional investors following a set business plan sell numerous properties in the same time frame, prices in those neighborhoods could decline again.

A Handful Of State Marketplaces Opt Not To Charge Smokers More For Premiums

By Michelle Andrews

This material was published by Kaiser Health News.

Since smokers' health-care costs tend to be higher than those of nonsmokers, is it reasonable for smokers to pay higher premiums when they buy insurance through the new state marketplaces that are scheduled to open in October? A handful of states and the District say the answer is no.

"We decided it's not in the good interests of our people" to charge smokers more, says Mohammad Akhter, chairman of the D.C. Health Benefit Exchange Authority, which is developing the District's online marketplace.

Under the 2010 Affordable Care Act, health insurers are allowedto charge smokers 50 percent higher premiums than nonsmokers for new policies sold to individuals and small employer groups.

States have the option to reduce or eliminate the variation in rates, however, and six states and the District have opted not to charge smokers more, according to the Department of Health and Human Services. A few others have limited the premium differential to less than 50 percent. 

More From This SeriesInsuring Your Health

Fishing or Mining: Alaska’s Bristol Bay Region Debates Its Future

This material was published by the Center for American Progress.

By Michael Conathan

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Gina McCarthy spent part of her tour of Alaska hearing local opinions on the proposed Pebble Mine project, an operation that a recent article in The Washington Post called “the biggest environmental decision facing Obama you’ve never heard of.”

While the planned gigantic open-pit mine in Southwest Alaska has been in the works for roughly a decade, many of the details pertaining to the Pebble Mine and its operation remain under wraps. What the developers—the Pebble Limited Partnership—have been very forthcoming about, however, is the richness of their discovery, which they claim is the largest untapped copper resource left on the planet. They believe it could produce as much as half a trillion dollars in revenue.

But the partnership has yet to release its final mine plan specifying precisely where it will dig and—perhaps of greater concern—where it will dump its waste. The company’s recalcitrance has drawn the ire of Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), who sent John Shively, the Pebble Partnership’s CEO, a letter earlier this summer criticizing his organization for inciting “anxiety, frustration, and confusion that have become the norm in many communities” by failing to provide details of its proposed operations.

Finally, Iran Reciprocates

This material was published by the Center for American Progress.

By Matthew Duss 

The most significant part of NBC’s interview with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani last night was not his announcement that Iran would never seek to develop nuclear weapons. Iran’s leaders have repeatedly said so. Much more important was Rouhani’s assurance that his administration had the backing of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei—the key decision maker in Iran’s political system—to resolve the dispute over Iran’s nuclear program. This signals a shift from Khamenei, who has been one of the biggest skeptics of efforts to repair Iran’s relations with the international community and with the United States in particular.

As Iranian-American author and translator Hooman Majd commented on “All In with Chris Hayes” on MSNBC last night, “The Iranian leadership is in sync now for the first time in years.”

This is not to downplay the importance of the gestures Rouhani has made since he took office in August, which are clearly designed to address key concerns of Iran’s major critics in the international community and repair the country’s image in the wake of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s presidency. The release of political prisoners yesterday, while not unprecedented, was the latest move. Human rights attorney Nasrin Sotoudeh, who was named by President Barack Obama in his 2011 Nowruz greeting to Iran, was among those released—something that is not to be overlooked.

Infographic: Raising the Minimum Wage

This material was published by the Center for American Progress.

View the full infographic (CAP Action)

California Gov. Jerry Brown (D) is poised to sign into law a bill to raise the state’s minimum wage from $8 per hour to $10 per hour by 2016. Currently, a full-time, year-round minimum-wage earner in California earns $16,640 a year, nearly $2,900 below the federal poverty level for a family of three. A wage increase of $2 per hour would translate to $4,160 more in annual earnings for such workers, lifting their wages to just above the poverty level for a family of three and significantly boosting their ability to pay for life’s essentials.

The new law is a significant win for California’s working families, but $10 per hour is still not enough for working families in many of the state’s urban areas to be self-sufficient. Nationwide workers also continue to struggle; nearly a third of all working families in the United States may not have enough money to meet basic needs, and too many American workers earn the federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour.

View the full infographic (CAP Action)

 

Obama Administration Helped Kill Transparency Push on Military Aid

by Cora Currier ProPublica

The U.S. spent roughly $25 billion last year on what's loosely known as security assistance2014a term that can cover everything from training Afghan security forces to sending Egypt F-16 fighter jets to equipping Mexican port police with radiation scanners.

The spending, which has soared in the past decade, can be hard to trace, funneled through dozens of sometimes overlapping programs across multiple agencies. There's also evidence it's not always wisely spent. In Afghanistan, for instance, the military bought $771 million worth of aircraft this year for Afghan pilots, most of whom still don't know how to fly them.

Last year, legislators in the House drafted a bill that would require more transparency and evaluation of security and all foreign aid programs. The bill was championed by an unlikely coalition of Tea Party budget hawks and giant aid groups such as Oxfam America.

But the Obama administration successfully pushed to have security assistance exempted from the bill's requirements, according to a letter obtained by ProPublica and interviews with Congressional staffers.

Future Choices II: An Update on the Legal, Statutory, and Policy Landscape of Assisted Reproductive Technologies

This article was published by the Center for American Progress.

By Jessica Arons and Liz Chen 

Endnotes and citations are available in the PDF version of this report.

Download the report: PDF

Download introduction & summary: PDF

Read it in your browser: Scribd

In 2007 the Center for American Progress released its report “Future Choices: Assisted Reproductive Technologies and the Law,” which described a range of assisted reproductive technologies and their legal and regulatory background. The report also examined the policy implications of the largely unregulated field of reproductive technology, especially in the context of traditional feminist positions on reproductive rights. If a woman has the ultimate right to decide whether or not to bear a child when she is pregnant, for instance, does that principle hold true when she would like to become pregnant with the use of specific embryos? Is surrogacy a noble pursuit undertaken by autonomous, well-informed, and altruistic women, or is it a practice that exploits the low-income and vulnerable?